The Historic Hammāms of Damascus and Fez: Lessons of Sustainability and Future Developments

Abstract

The public bath, or hammām, is a building type which has been integral to the urban fabric of Islamic cities. Whereas other building types have attracted much attention and research in the past, studies of hammām buildings have remained scarce and far apart. Based on surveys carried by the author on the historic public baths of Damascus and Fez, this paper highlights the characteristics of this building type as a sustainable urban facility which not only promotes cleanliness and health of the urban dwellers but also social interaction and a support for a rich intangible heritage. The paper also highlights the lessons that this building type provides in terms of thermal comfort, under-floor heating system, water heating and management and recycling of by- products from local small industries. The paper then discusses possible future adaptive re-use of this building type in the light of Sustainable Development Agenda.

Full text

PLEA2006 - The 23
rd
Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, Geneva, Switzerland, 6-8 September 2006
The Historic Hammāms of Damascus and Fez:
Lessons of Sustainability and Future Developments
Dr. Magda Sibley
School of Architecture, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT: The public bath, or hammām, is a building type which has been integral to the urban
fabric of Islamic cities. Whereas other building types have attracted much attention and research in
the past, studies of hammām buildings have remained scarce and far apart.
Based on surveys carried by the author on the historic public baths of Damascus and Fez, this
paper highlights the characteristics of this building type as a sustainable urban facility which not only
promotes cleanliness and health of the urban dwellers but also social interaction and a support for a
rich intangible heritage. The paper also highlights the lessons that this building type provides in terms
of thermal comfort, under-floor heating system, water heating and management and recycling of by-
products from local small industries. The paper then discusses possible future adaptive re-use of
this building type in the light of Sustainable Development Agenda.
Keywords: public bath, hammām,
Islamic city, lessons of sustainability, water management, thermal
comfort, appropriate building materials
1. INTRODUCTION
Bath houses, or public baths, have existed since
the Hellenestic period and flourished throughout the
time of the Romans and Byzantines. Although the
bathing tradition died out in the West, it continued in
the Levant after the arrival of Muslim Arabs. The
period following the rise of Islam witnessed a rapid
development in the history of public baths and a
change from Roman to Islamic bathing habits. A
process of assimilation of the Roman and Byzantine
baths has taken place during which features which
responded to the needs, traditions and religious
beliefs were retained, while others were discarded.
During the first century of the Islamic calendar (622
AD) there was a wide spread of Roman baths with a
three room composition (frigidarium, tepidarium and
calidarium) and the first Islamic hammāms consisted
of a linear progression of rooms with varying
temperatures. The most well known surviving
example is Qusayr Amra in the Jordanian Desert
(figure 1).
The religious requirements for washing in Islam
played an important role in the way hammāms
developed. For example, the cold plunge pool, a
major feature of the Roman baths, disappeared in the
Islamic baths. Although pools existed in some
hammāms of Palestine and Greater Syria, bathing by
immersion was not common during the Islamic period
as it was considered inappropriate. Instead, bathing
in running water became the norm.
The Islamic public bath forms part of the triad of
essential urban facilities in the Islamic city - the
mosque, the hammām and the suq. It is an urban
facility which not only facilitates the accomplishment
Figure 1: Qusayr Amra Early Umayyad Bath built
Between 712 and 715.Source:
http://archnet.org/library
of the great ablutions (hence its location near
mosques) but it also plays an important social
function as it serves as a meeting place for both male
and female society. Despite the importance of this
building type, the hammām as an institution has been

PLEA2006 - The 23
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Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, Geneva, Switzerland, 6-8 September 2006
in decline since the 19th century, particularly with the
introduction of private bathrooms facilities in modern
housing. Many hammāms have closed, fallen in
disrepair or have been completely destroyed. The
rate in which evidence of this important building type
is being removed is alarming, particularly as this
building type presents unique lessons of
environmental, social and economical sustainability.
This paper is based on surveys carried out by the
author on the hammāms of Fez and Damascus, in
2000 and 2004 respectively. The work was carried
out as part of research projects funded by the Arts
and Humanities Research Board (now Research
Council) in the UK. It presents the main
characteristics
of this building in two world heritage
cities located in distinct geographical areas.
2. THE PUBLIC BATHS OF FEZ
Studies on hammāms in North Africa and the
Middle East are few and far between. Edmund Pauty
[1] made an extensive survey of the hammāms in
Cairo in the 1930’s. Slightly later Claude Ecochard
and Michel Le Coeur published a major reference
work on the hammāms of Damascus [2]. In Morocco,
most published surveys date from the French
Protectorate period (1912-1957). The work of Henri
Terrasse [3] analyses three Merinide hammāms and
the work of Edmond Secret [4] [5] concentrates on
surveying the hammāms in Fez. More recently a
survey was carried out in the 1990’s on the Islamic
baths in Palestine [6].
The majority of historic hammāms in the medina
of Fez have managed to survive and continue to
function today. This is mainly due to the fact that the
medina of Fez has managed to survive in its integrity
and is still inhabited today. The peripheral location of
the Maghreb shielded it from major geographical
conflicts which hit the Fertile Crescent and Egypt,
such as the crusades and the two waves of Mongol
invasions leading to the destruction of earlier historic
structures. When Morocco fell under the French
protectorate in 1912, the colonial city of Fez was
established away from the historic urban fabric.
These factors played an important role in the
preservation of the urban integrity of the medina of
Fez and its traditional urban facilities such as the
hammāms. The prosperity of Fez during the rule of
various dynasties was expressed in the number of
public baths that the city enjoyed [7]. It was estimated
that ninety-three hammāms existed in Fez during the
Almohades period in the 12
th
century. During the
Merinide dynasty, established in 1248, Fez acquired
the status of a capital and continued to flourish as did
its public baths.
In 1999-2000, 30 historic hammāms were still
operating and half of them were visited by the author.
2.1 Urban location and water distribution system
The old city of Fez is situated in a bowl with a
plateau above it receiving the river of Fez. The
traditional water distribution system was based on the
gravity system whereby the river was divided at the
top plateau into various underground channels which
descended to the different quarters of the Medina.
The hammāms are located along the under-ground
water channels and are built on sloping sites to help
with water drainage. Some hammāms are located
next to existing natural springs or wells and offer a
public fountain. This is the case of Hammāms Moulay
Idriss and Seffarine in Fez. The location and
frequency of the hammāms depended also on their
proximity to large mosques, commercial districts (or
suks) or neighbourhood centres
Hammāms are generally well embedded in the
traditional urban fabric of the city. Their position is
never prominent, their entrance is discreet and their
facades are totally blind. Their presence in the urban
fabric is more evident at roof level because of their
pierced domes and vaults that are specific to them
and are not found in any other building type (Fig. 2).
Figure 2: Hammām Seffarine in Fez evident by its
roof domes (photo taken by the author)
2.2 Form and function
Unlike the Roman baths, Islamic baths are much
smaller and more frequent within the urban fabric.
They are never free-standing structures but are
surrounded by other buildings, reducing the area of
their exposed external walls to that of the entrance
façade only.
The form and function of the hammām in Fez has
remained constant from medieval times onwards.
While the Mamluk and Ottoman public baths in
Damascus tend to have a central organisation of the
bathing spaces, the hammāms surveyed in Fez have
maintained a linear and axial organisation reminiscent
of the first Umayyad public baths (Fig. 1). They all
follow the same configuration of four sequential
rooms, Mashlah or Goulsa – the Roman apodyterium
– al-Barrani – the Roman frigidarium – al-Wastani –
the Roman tepidarium – and al-Dakhli – the Roman
caldarium. This is illustrated in the plan and section of
Hammām Seffarine (Fig. 3), one of the most well-
known hammām in Fez, located near the main
religious center of the Qarauyyine mosque. The
undressing/dressing room is usually accessed from
the street through a bent entrance which prevents
visual intrusion into the internal spaces. This room is
usually covered with a high dome and is the largest
and most decorated space in the hammāms of Fez. It
usually displays a beautiful fountain built against the

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wall separating the undressing room and the bathing
spaces and has beautiful carved stucco and cedar
decorations. The walls are covered halfway down by
finely coloured locally produced ceramic tiles locally
known as Zellidj. The changing areas are slightly
raised from centre of the room and consist of seating
and lockers along the peripheral walls of the
undressing space. The reception area is located
within the same space, next to the entrance of the
hammām. The access to the cold room is through an
intermediate corridor where toilets are located. Next is
the first room or Barrani, which consists of a small
space used by clients to rest from the heat of the
warm and the hot rooms. The next space is the Wasti
or warm room and is usually the largest and main
bathing space covered by a pierced dome. Buckets of
hot water are filled from the basin in the hot room and
placed in the warm room for washing, since there are
built in washing basins and no pipes circulating the
water. Instead, the water is scooped from the
buckets by a small brass bowl called tassa. Hot water
was traditionally collected from the hot water basin in
the hot room, using a special traditional wooden
bucket called the kebb which has a capacity of twenty
litres. The amount of water each client received was
limited to four to six traditional buckets – anything
above this quantity had to be paid for. Plastic buckets
have now replaced the traditional wooden ones
although these are still being made in the medina.
The final room, the hot room or dakhli, is adjacent to
the furnace and contains a large basin of hot water
locally called burma. The hot water arrives directly
from the cauldrons placed in the furnace.
Figure 3: Hammām Seffarine ground floor plan and
section
2.3 The heating system
The heating section of the hammām, the furnace,
or furnatchi, is built against one of the walls of the hot
room. It has its own entrance for the
delivery of the
fuel and has no access to the bathing spaces. The
furnace is sometimes combined with a public bakery
to make economic use of the furnace and the
firewood. The fire is lit under two or more large brass
cauldrons measuring two meters in diameter and
three to four meters in height. These cauldrons are
locally made in the neighbouring Seffarine square.
The warm and hot rooms are heated using the
hypocaust system traditionally used in the Roman
baths. The hot smoke from the fire travels under the
floor of the hot and warm rooms before rising up a
chimney in the walls (Fig. 4). Once the air has passed
under the floor, it is drawn into the walls and up the
flues due to the hot air already rising in the flues
creating a partial vacuum. The heating system is a
labour intensive device as it requires constant
attention to feed the fire and remove the ashes. The
furnatchi attendant works from four o’clock in the
morning until 10 o’clock at night, keeping the furnace
fire going by throwing fuel into the furnace on a
regular basis (Fig. 5).
Figure 4: The ancient Roman Hypocaust system
Source: http://romans-in-britain.org.uk
Figure 5: The furnace and the delivery of fuel in Fez
(photos taken by the author)
In addition to wood, different types of by-products
from local small industries are recycled as fuel for the
furnace. These include wood shavings (from the local
wood workshops) and olive pits (from nearby olive oil
presses). Straw and peat are also used. All the
furnatchis visited in 2000 in the Medina of Fez were
still operating in the traditional way. The fuel is

PLEA2006 - The 23
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transported to the hammāms on donkey backs and
dumped in heaps in the furnatchi (Fig. 5).
2.4 Social customs and habits
The vast majority of the historic public baths of
Fez consist of a single hammām, i.e. they do not have
two separate sections for men and women but
operate different schedules for them. They allow for
the easy accomplishment of the great ablution and for
maintaining cleanliness and health for a poor
population. Furthermore, the hammām forms an
important part of the lives of Morrocan women and is
associated with the celebration of important life
events such as weddings, the birth of a child and
circumcision. A number of customs, traditions and
rituals have been transmitted from one generation to
another and are still alive today. Some hammāms are
associated with a religious figure for which an alcove
is allocated in the hot room and where customers light
candles as prayers. It was evident during the field
work that hammāms in Fez have sustained their
function until today. This can be explained by the fact
that they are still very much needed by the local poor
population living in the courtyard houses of the
Medina and where bathroom facilities are not
available for each family. They have also sustained
a number of social practices which are very much
alive and represent a rich non-tangible element of
urban heritage.
2.5 Current situation and lessons for the future
It is important to note that the social practice of
going to the hammām is still very much alive in
Morocco. Such a practice is not limited to the poor
population, as new public baths are being built in new
neighbourhoods where dwelling units have their own
private bathroom facilities. Furthermore, private
steam baths are also being built in large villas and
hotels and their benefits are widely acknowledged
today. In addition to cleanliness and beauty
treatment, steam baths provide a number of health
benefits in terms of reducing muscle tension and
stress, improving skin blood circulation and
eliminating toxins through perspiration.
There are no clear guidelines for the maintenance
of the historic structures or the design of new ones.
Direct observation revealed that some of the historic
structures are in danger of collapse, particularly in the
furnace area. In some cases domes have collapsed
and have been replaced by reinforced flat concrete
slabs which lack the thermal characteristics of the
original construction. A number of other insensitive
alterations have taken place, particularly in the
entrance and reception areas. The original layout has
been altered by opening new passageways or
dividing the spaces. However, the internal bathing
spaces, have, by and large, retained their original
characteristics.
3. THE PUBLIC BATHS OF DAMASCUS
A survey of the public baths of Damascus was
conducted by the author in 2004 and provided an
updated list of the historic public baths of Damascus
and their condition and usage in the 21st century. Of
the 40 operating hammāms identified in the 1940’s [2]
only 13 were still operating in 2004 with the remainder
being either demolished or changed function. It is
clear that the rate at which this building type is
disappearing in Damascus is alarming. The few
surviving examples are usually located within the
walled city and are near major commercial or tourist
areas.
3.1 The Evolution of the hammāms of Damascus
Unlike the public baths of Fez which have
retained the early configuration of the first Islamic
baths, those in Damascus have evolved and changed
over the centuries. Ecochard and Le Coeur produced
the most comprehensive record of the historic public
baths of Damascus [2]. Detailed drawings were
produced for 29 hammāms dating from the 14
th
century to the 19
th
century. A careful analysis of their
layout was carried out highlighting a slow evolution of
their internal organisation. They have evolved away
from the Roman baths: the bathing spaces in general
and the hot room in particular have become dominant
over the other spaces. The proportions of the bathing
spaces and their arrangements have also witnessed
variations throughout different historic periods. It is
evident that the hot room develops over the centuries
at the expense of the other washing rooms and
becomes the only washing space in the 19
th
century
(Fig. 6). Whereas the pre-Ottoman hammāms
displayed a clear sequence of warm and hot room,
with associated side chambers, the Ottoman baths
consist mainly of a simple hot room and side
chambers.
Figure 6: Evolution of the hammām layout in
Damascus between the 12 and 19
th
century. Adapted
from Ecochard and le Coeur [2]
In addition to the changes in the importance and
proportions of the bathing spaces, their spatial
organisation has also seen various developments.
Two typical organisations can be found in the pre-
14th century hammāms: a sequential, linear one
where the bathing spaces are organised along an
axis and a central one where the spaces are
organised around a main octagonal room. Both types
of organisations co-existed simultaneously between
the 12
th
and 14
th
centuries, after which only the

PLEA2006 - The 23
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central organisation remained until the 18
th
century
when the internal organisation reverses back to a
linear organisation with a loss of complex
architectural forms (Fig. 6). The co-existence of both
linear and central organisations within the same city
between the 12
th
and the 13
th
century can be
explained by the existence of two sources of
influences in the antiquity. The octagonal
compositions with diagonal extensions of bathing
spaces (Fig. 8) are reminiscent of Byzantine
architecture whereas the linear organisation is
reminiscent of the early Umayyad baths (Fig. 7).
Figure 7: Linear organisation and duct heating
system in hammām Fethi (18
th
Century)- adapted
from Ecochard and le Coeur (1943) [2], pp.100-102
3.2 Form and function
As in the case of Fez, a typical hammām in
Damascus consists of two activity areas: the
undressing room or rooms (Meshlah) and the
washing areas (al-Berrani, al-Westani and al-Dakhli).
The undressing room is usually the largest space
covered by a dome and has raised stone benches (or
mastabas) around the walls. All the hammāms of
Damascus have a central water feature in their
undressing room and their washing areas contain
stone or marble washing basins (jurns) receiving hot
and cold water from clay pipes inbedded the walls.
The hot room or bayt-al-nar is the bathing space
adjacent to the furnace. The furnace or qammīm is
built against the hot room. The fire is lit under two or
more large brass cauldrons built into the furnace, and
the whole of the upper furnace serves as water
reservoir.
Figure 8: Central organisation of bathing spaces and
roof architecture of the bathing spaces with pierced
domes and vaults- adapted from Ecochard and le
Coeur (1943) [2] pp.66
3.3 The duct heating system
Whereas the hammām of Fez maintained the
heating system of the early Umayyad baths (a
hypocaust system inherited from Roman and
Byzantine times), the heating system of the medieval
hammāms of Damascus used smoke ducts travelling
under the floor of the washing rooms (Fig. 7). The
smoke from the fire in the furnace passes along a
duct under the floor of the hot room and rises up in a
chimney in the wall (Fig. 7). The duct branches out
into the side chambers and its presence is made
evident by the way the floor is paved with a black
stone tiling. The floor over the duct is known as the
fire slab or bilāt al-nār. The furnace is kept working
late at night allowing the structure to remain warm.
Unfortunately all the surviving and working historic
hammāms of Damascus have abandoned the
traditional heating system and replaced it by a boiler
fuelled by diesel. Concerns about air pollution and
pressure from local authorities have led to this
change of heating system. There is however one
exception and that is hammām Ammuna located
outside the city walls and which continues to recycle
wood shavings and garbage as fuel for its furnace. It
is clear that the replacement of the heating system by
a boiler is not necessarily environmentally friendly.
Furthermore, the under-floor heating system which
allowed for the spaces to maintain comfortable warm
temperature is completely abandoned. The rooms are

PLEA2006 - The 23
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Conference on Passive and Low Energy Architecture, Geneva, Switzerland, 6-8 September 2006
heated by allowing steam from the boiler to enter the
bathing spaces. However, as soon as the boiler is
stopped during the night, the bathing spaces cool
down rapidly and take more time to heat again the
next day.
3.4 Natural lighting and ventilation: The pierced
domes and vaults
The most distinctive feature of the hammāms is
the way the domes over the washing rooms are
pierced with circular or star-shaped roof lights,
forming intricate patterns. Whereas Roman and
Byzantine bathhouses are naturally lit with a central
lantern at the top of the dome and windows placed at
the lower edge of the dome, the Islamic bath houses
are characterised by multiple circular or star-shaped
openings over the whole surface of the dome and
closed by glass caps. These openings consist of
pottery tubes built into the domes, closed by glass
covers and arranged according to various decorative
patterns. Some of these glass bulbs are removable in
order to allow for natural ventilation to take place
when the bathing spaces are not used.
These features can be found as early as the 7
th
century as evidenced in Qusayr Amra. They allow for
daylight to enter the bathing spaces and create a
special atmosphere enhanced by the high
concentration of steam in the bathing spaces.
Figure 9: The pierced domes and vaults in hammām
Fethi in Damascus (photos taken by the author)
3.5 Construction systems
One of the main requirements of the building
envelope is to have a high level of thermal mass in
order to keep the heat in. The walls are traditionally of
a thick stone or brick construction and the domes and
vaults are built with bricks. The floors are tiled with
stone or marble or with ceramic tiles as is the case in
Morocco. Special water-proof renders and plasters
are made from a lime mortar to which ashes from the
furnace are added. In the case of Fez, egg yolks are
added to lime plasters in order to provide a smooth
water-proof finish to the walls
3.6 Current usage and transformations
Unlike in Morocco, the tradition of going to the
hammām is disappearing in Syria. There are no new
hammāms being built in new residential areas and
many of the historic ones are used as storage spaces
or workshops. The few surviving ones are struggling
to continue as the rising cost of water, fuel and
personnel are making them uneconomical to run.
Those located near the touristic, historic areas have
been restored and have introduced new functions
such as massage rooms, showers and a pool. Others
have changed function and are used for storage or as
workshops. Most of those still operating have ceased
to receive women, closing their doors to the few
remaining female users and contributing to the
disappearance of a rich intangible heritage associated
with their usage by women.
4. FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
It is clear that the hammām as a traditional building
type offers a number of lessons of sustainability in
terms of construction, heating system, water use and
management, cleanliness, well being as well as social
and economic sustainability. Although there are clear
regional variations in terms of contemporary usages
and perceptions of these facilities as one moves from
the Middle East to North Africa, there are common
opportunities that can be developed based on water
storage and management (in countries where water
cuts are frequent) and the use of solar energy at the
scale of a neighbourhood. The hammām as a
building type could be reinterpreted for the
development of a new urban facility that can be easily
built in tight urban infill plots, making good use of
derelict urban sites. They could provide an essential
facility for women and children which in addition to the
washing and beauty treatment functions could
combine other functions such health awareness,
education, recreation and social gatherings and
recycling. There is however a need for developing
new guidelines for both the restoration of historic
hammām structures and the construction of new
ones. Those guidelines should not only be based on
the various lessons the historic hammāms present in
terms of architecture, construction technique and
space and water heating systems but also on the new
health and safety regulations and new building
technologies that can be appropriately applied in this
building type.
REFERENCES
[1] E. Pauty, Les hammāms du Caire IFAO., Le
Caire, 1933.
[2] Ecochard, M. and Le Coeur, C. “Les Bains de
Damas I and II” Beirut: Institut Francais de Damas,
1942, 1943.
[3] H..Terrasse,Trois Bains Merinides, in W. Marcais,
Melanges, Paris, 1954.
[4]
E.Secret Les Hammāms de Fez in, Bulletin de
L’institut d’hygiene du maroc, Nov. Serie 1/11/1942,
pp.6-77.
[5]
E.Secret, Les Sept Printemps De Fes, Amiens,
1990.
[6] M. Dow, The Islamic Baths of Palestine, The
British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, 1992.